


Tales from a Deranged Youth

by Shwoo



Category: Sam & Max
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Humor, Kid Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-01
Updated: 2012-06-18
Packaged: 2017-10-21 01:45:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 20,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/219526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shwoo/pseuds/Shwoo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of stories from Sam and Max's childhood.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. You Can Be The Dog

  
Share   


  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Sam stood under a tree, listening intently. He heard a quiet rustling sound, and cocked his imaginary laser gun. It was the year 2078, a whole century in the future, and things were dangerous out on the recently colonised colony planet of Eris.

Nothing happened, and he relaxed fractionally.

Then Max fell on him, clawing and biting, but not very hard. After a valiant struggle, Sam managed to throw him off, and stood over him, his laser pointed threateningly.

"But it was too late!" said Max. "The space monster had bitten him!" He mimed biting Sam's head.

Sam glared at him. "You did not! I captured you and brought you to the colony base!"

"And then you turned into an evil alien zombie oozing green goo!" responded Max. He stood up. "I win!"

Sam sighed. Max always won. "Okay, I'm a mutant monster space marine now." He adopted a threatening pose, and tried out a growl.

It was cut short when a group of three girls ran up to them. Sam knew them. They were in his grade. "Max!" said Jennie. She was a dark haired girl that Sam didn't like much. For some reason she kept trying to talk to them.

Max glared. "What do you girls want? Sam was just about to go on a bloody rampage all through the Eris colony base!"

"You guys are such babies," said Jennie, flipping her hair. "You're way too old to play pretend."

Max glared some more. Sam envied him sometimes. He wasn't shy at all. "Oh yeah? What are you girls doing? Sucking on your pacifiers? You know, because you're babies?" Max's wit was one thing about him that Sam didn't envy.

Jennie smiled. "We're playing house. And Max... the twins need a dad."

Max looked at the other two girls, who were named Melanie and Pelanie. "I'll say." Their dad had died under mysterious circumstances a couple of years before. Nobody knew how, but everyone knew he'd been involved in a lot of shady stuff.

"In the game, stupid!" said Pelanie. She looked about ready to punch him.

"Oh..." said Max. "Good luck with that." He turned back to look at Sam. "Try foaming at the mouth more, Sam. Every good monster foams at the mouth."

Sam looked back at the girls. They showed no signs of leaving. "I think they want you to join their game." Besides, he wasn't sure exactly how he was supposed to foam at the mouth. Spit a lot, maybe?

"Ooh..." said Max. He turned back to the girls. "Is there an alien invasion in your game?"

Jennie looked thoughtful. "Uh... Yeah. They're invading, um... Antarctica. Okay, you're the dad, I'm the mom, and Pelanie and Melanie are the kids."

"What about me?" said Sam, who wasn't sure when they'd decided that they were playing.

The girls stared at him, like they'd only just noticed he was there.

"Um..." said Jennie. "You can be the dog, Sam."

"Aw..." Sam had no idea how to play or what that meant exactly, but the way she'd said it spoke volumes.

Sam made it through through five minutes of of watching Max come home from work and greet the girls, and then watching Max and the girls sit down to dinner, before he said "This is boring. I wanna play something else."

"Yeah!" said Max.

At the same time, Jennie said "Shut up, Sam! Dogs don't talk!"

A long, confused silence followed.

"You're the kind of dog that doesn't talk," said Jennie at last, in a decisive tone of voice.

"How do you know?" said Sam. "Maybe I just never had anything to say." That had happened a few times, or so he'd heard.

"Or he could secretly be Cerberus the mythical three headed hell hound," put in Max. "Hiding his extra heads behind each other!"

Sam grinned. "Yeah! Maybe I'm here to rip the flesh from your bones." Finally, things were getting interesting.

"Gross!" said Pelanie.

"You're weird, Sam," said Jennie. "You should be happy we even let you play."

"Max is weirder," muttered Sam. At they weren't beating him up, he thought. That didn't happen as much as it used to now that he was friends with Max, but it was still one good thing about talking to girls. Most girls.

Jennie started to say something more, but she was drowned out by the school bell.

"Now look what you did!" she said to Sam. "We can't play at all anymore."

"Actually, I don't think..." began Melanie.

"Shut up, Melaine!" said Jennie, as they walked down to the school building.

Once they were gone, Max said "Girls are weird."

"Yeah," said Sam.

–

Back in class, Miss Dobson handed back everyone's homework. "Well done, Sam," she said, giving him his homework. Sam smiled. He'd got a B+.

"Hey!" said Max, looking at his own worksheet. It was marked with a big F. "How could you fail me? My answers were the same as Sam's!"

"That's right, Max, they were," said Miss Dobson. "They even had the same name on them."

Max looked puzzled. "I thought it was one of the questions," he said. Sam winced.

To Sam, Miss Dobson said, "Sam, you need to stop letting Max copy your answers. One day you'll be gainfuly employed and he'll graduate with NO SKILLS WHATSOEVER, and he'll be out on the street BEGGING, and you'll be so guilty you'll give him ALL YOUR MONEY, but it'll be TOO LATE FOR HIM, and he'll spend it ALL on DRUGS, and you'll both die PENNILESS and ALONE!" She stopped, out of breath.

"Wow, all that because he can't do long division?" said Sam. He was pretty sure that Max wouldn't beg for money. Steal, maybe. But never beg. Although, Miss Dobson was a teacher... Maybe she knew something he didn't.

"Never underestimate the power of a good education, young... man," said Miss Dobson. She walked on.

Max snorted. "That's never gonna happen. I tried acid once. It wasn't as great as everyone says."

"Don't let the teacher hear you say that," whispered Sam. It probably shouldn't have surprised him that Max had tried drugs, he thought. His family was almost as crazy as he was.

–

Sam came home, dropped his bag on the floor, flopped on the couch, and stared at the TV. Then he got up again, and turned it on.

He was happy for about fifteen minutes, until his older sister, Sarah, marched into the room and changed the channel.

"Hey!" said Sam. "I was watching that!"

"And now I'm watching Happy Days," replied Sarah. She sat down.

Sam looked at the screen. He wasn't a big fan of Happy Days, mostly because his sister liked it so much. "I was here first!" he protested.

All Sarah said in response is "Shut up, Sam, I'm trying to watch this."

Sam jumped off the couch and headed for his room, annoyed. Why was every girl so pushy? Besides, Casablanca was better than Happy Days. Way better. Happy Days wasn't a classic. He could tell because it wasn't in black and white and film critics didn't keep talking about it. He wished they had a VCR or something.

A musty smell greeted Sam as he entered the bedroom. One day he'd really have to look for all those treats he'd dropped down the side of his bed. They'd be all rotted and disgusting by now, but at least his room wouldn't smell so bad.

Sam covered his nose, and turned his computer on. He'd won it in a competition over the summer, and nobody was going to make him sell it. Computers were really interesting, he thought.

After messing around with a few games, and getting used to the smell, Sam wrote a program. It went 10 PRINT SAM IS COOL 20 GOTO 10

He left the computer filling up the screen, and fell onto his bed. At least the computer liked him. Even if he had to tell it to.

"Hey!" said an unexpected voice. Sam looked around, and noticed that there was a cockroach on his pillow. It didn't bother him. He was used to cockroaches. "Get off the bed!" said the cockroach. "I was using it!"

"Sorry," replied Sam, and slid off onto the floor.

He lay there until the cockroach said "Hey kid."

"What?" said Sam. He sat up. The carpet had been digging into the back his head. It was a very stiff carpet.

The cockroach jumped off Sam's bed, navigated its way around a few fallen books, and climbed onto Sam's knee. "You're a doormat, do you know that, kid?"

"I am not!" protested Sam. "I'm just..." He considered why he was sitting on the floor, and hung his head. "I guess I sorta am..."

"You need to be more assertive," said the cockroach.

Sam thought about this. "Like Humphrey Bogart?"

"No!" said the cockroach, annoyed. "Not like Humphrey Bogart! Just say no once in a while. Quit being so pathetic. It's depressing."

Sam thought some more. "But won't that make people mad?" He didn't want to make anybody angry at him. It never seemed to help.

"Who cares?" said the cockroach. It made a punching motion with its left upper arm. "If you really want something, you gotta take it. You can't just wait around for somebody to hand it to you."

"I... guess," said Sam slowly. The cockroach had a point, maybe. It couldn't hurt to try, could it? Actually, it could hurt, and he knew it. But still. The cockroach had a point.

–

He made his first attempt during dinner. They were having pork chops, with pork chops on the side.

"Pass the salt, Sam," said his mother.

Sam swallowed, then said "No."

His mother looked right at him, and Sam shrank back in his chair. "What?" Her voice was icy.

"Here!" said Sam quickly, grabbing the salt and plunking it down in front of her. Well, that hadn't worked. Maybe he should try it on someone who terrified him less, like Satan or something.

–

He got his next opportunity the day after. He and Max were in the school library, a small, run-down room with a single bookshelf. There was nobody else around; the school hadn't been able to afford a librarian since 1861.

"I feel like a nerd," said Max, looking around nervously. "What if the paparazzi see us?"

"Shut up, Max," said Sam. He hefted a book of Norse mythology from the shelf and opened it on a table. "I keep telling you, there's lots of neat stuff in books."

"And I keep not believing you," said Max. He stayed where he was, as far away from the shelf as possible, and lowered his voice. "Haven't you heard? _Books give you cancer._ "

Sam flipped through the pages. "Listen, this part is about the Norse god Odin. He ripped out his eye and put it in a well."

"Huh? Really?" said Max. He pushed Sam out of the way and poured over the book. "Let me see!" He read, or at least looked at the book. "Nice pictures."

Sam and Max read through the book for a while, Sam helping Max with some of the bigger words. Sam liked mythology. It was violent.

"Well well. Look at the nerds."

Sam looked up quickly. It was Roger, the second biggest bully he'd ever known.

"I'm not a nerd," protested Max, shoving the book away from him. "He is!"

"Shut _up_ , Max," said Sam. He looked at Roger. Be assertive. Right. "What do you want?"

"You got any money?" said Roger, with his hand out.

"Yes," said Sam. He realised why Roger was asking. "I mean, yes. But you can't have it."

Roger narrowed his eyes. "Why not?"

"Oooh!" said Max. He leaned forward. "Go get him, Sam!"

"'Cause I said no," said Sam. It was hard to keep the tremor out of his voice.

Roger punched him.

–

Max clambered onto the bookshelf and produced a knife. "Nice going, Sam." He stood on his toes, and hacked away at the webbing binding Sam to the ceiling.

"You coulda helped," said Sam. Stupid Roger and his stupid spider silk. He wasn't even a spider, as far as Sam could tell.

"You're not supposed to fight in the library, Sam," said Max. "Tisk tisk." He cut one of Sam's arms free.

Sam rolled his eyes. It was obvious that he'd just wanted to watch the fight. Sometimes he joined in, sometimes he didn't. It was always hard to tell what Max would do.

"Why'd you stand up to him, anyway?" said Max. "And... would you be willing to do it again in a steel cage in front of hundreds of paying customers?"

"A- Ow!" Max had grazed him. Sam tried his best to keep still, and said "A cockroach told me to be more assertive. I think he was r... Max? Are you okay?"

Max pulled himself back up onto the bookshelf. He looked to be okay. He'd only fallen onto his head. "Never trust a cockroach, Sam."

Sam shrugged with his free arm. He usually didn't trust them, but it had just seemed like good advice. "Hey Max," he said. "Where did you get that knife?" He clearly hadn't been holding it when they'd come in.

"None of your business, Sam," said Max.

–

Back on the playground, Sam and Max sat under the big tree.

"That was fun," said Max. "Let's do it again sometime."

Sam ignored him, and continued picking bits of web out of his fur. He noticed Jennie, Melanie and Pelanie coming towards them, and groaned.

"Max, we're playing house again," said Jennie, the second she was close enough. To Sam, she said "You can't play. You're too weird."

"If Sam's not playing, neither am I," said Max. "You girls are so boring!"

Jennie sighed loudly. "Okay, he can play. But he still has to be the dog."

This looked like a good time to be assertive, Sam realised. It was a good time because most girls didn't hit. "No," said Sam. "I wanna be a policeman." It was the first thing that came into his head that sounded interesting.

"You can't," snapped Jennie, folding her arms. "You'd just weird it up. You have to be the dog."

"I have to be the policeman or else I'm not playing," said Sam. He folded his arms too, and tried to look serious.

They glared at each other until Pelanie said "Just let him be a policeman so we can play!"

"Fine!" said Jennie, with one last glare at Sam.

Max and the girls pretended to be in the living room, watching TV, while Sam waited outside, which was really just a couple of feet away.

"Knock knock," he said, after a minute or two.

"I'll get it!" said Melanie. She opened the imaginary door. "Oh, hello, officer."

"Hello, ma'am. I'm here to investigate an allegation of domestic abuse," said Sam. It was the kind of thing he'd heard the police say. Or was that the social workers? He could never remember.

"Um..." said Melanie. "Come in?" She motioned through the door.

"Aaaah!" said Max in mock horror. "It's the fuzz! They've found us! Run!" He ran right into Sam, who grabbed him and held him up by the neck. Then he dropped him. Max was kind of short, but he was still heavy.

Jennie put her hands on her hips. "Why should we run?"

" _Because_ we're secretly a family of serial killers, on the run after we killed fifty thousand people back in Deadguyton!" said Max.

"I said abuse, not murder!" protested Sam. "You can't just change it like that!"

"I didn't change it!" said Max. "We're an abusive family of serial killers!"

"No!" said Jennie. "We're not playing this!"

"Thrilling car chases are way more interesting than... whatever you wanted to play," said Max. He mimed driving a car, making engine noises. "Right, Sam?

"Yeah!" said Sam. What did the girls want to play, anyway? It almost looked like the point was to sit around and pretend to be grown up, but nobody would be that dull, would they? Not even a girl.

"No it's not!" said Jennie. "We're just a normal family. Right, Pelanie, Melanie?"

Pelanie shrugged, and Melanie said "Sounds kind of interesting to me."

"Shut up, Melanie!" yelled Jennie.

"Are we car chasing or not?" said Max.

Once Jennie had stormed away in a huff, Sam said "Did you see that, Max? I was assertive.'

"You stood up to a bunch of girls," said Max. "Big deal."

He was right, but Sam just shrugged. "It's a start."


	2. You Can Be The Dog

  
Share   


  
  
  
  
  
  
  


"I just don't think it's a good idea to spit on people from up here, Max," said Sam. Nervously, he looked down from the apartment balcony at the street below. There were people with guns down there. He could see them. "Can you even see over the railing?" he added. Sam could just barely see over it, but Max was only a normal height if you included his ears.

Max looked at the railing, then back at Sam. "I can see through my _ears_ , _duh_."

"You can not!" said Sam. "You need..." he searched his memory for a word to do with eyes. "...retinas! Or something!"

"Maybe you need those," said Max loftily, "but we rabbits evolved beyond... whatever you said... long ago. Besides..." he jumped onto the railing and sat there, facing towards the street. "Now I can spit on whoever I want."

"Max, don't!" said Sam. Suddenly, the long drop, and the broken beer bottles at the bottom, made him sick.

Max laughed. "Quit being such a wet blanket! I'm not gonna fall!" He leaned forward.

A lot of things happened at once, ending with Sam standing on his toes, with his nose over the railing. Max was on the other side, holding onto Sam's arm so tightly that he was cutting off the circulation.

"Pull me up, Sam!" said Max, in a panicky voice. A car went by on the street below.

Sam tried, but only succeeded in hurting his shoulder. Max was heavier than he looked. "I can't!" He raised himself further up on his toes, and offered Max his other arm.

After a couple of seconds, Max said "Pull me up! _Pull me up_!"

"I'm trying!" said Sam. He looked down at the street again, willing a truck full of hay to pass by. Then he imagined what would happen if they tried to fall into it and missed, and decided to think about something else. Like the fact that his feet were beginning to leave the ground. He braced himself against the railing.

"Can you hear creaking?" said Max.

"No," said Sam, who could. Half his body was over the railing now, but at least he didn't seem to be sliding any further.

"What are you kids yelling about?"

Sam recognised his older brother Stuart's voice, but he was sure that if he looked around, they'd fall and splat and die. "Max fell over the side. I tried to pull him up, and now we're stuck."

"Help us!" said Max.

"Oh." The smell of cigarette smoke wafted over to them.

Sam tried one more time to pull Max up, and said "Smoking is bad for you."

"Whatever you say, kid."

Stuart wasn't making any move to help them.

Sam frowned, almost forgetting about the life threatening peril for a second. He hated it when Stuart did this. He wasn't even a teenager yet. Nobody who wasn't a teenager yet should be smoking or calling anybody kid. It wasn't right.

"Remember that guy we found on the sidewalk a few years ago?" said Stuart conversationally. "I heard he got on the wrong side of some supervillain. Pushed him out of a plane."

Sam had been trying his best not to remember that. " _Stuart_!" Max was beginning to whimper, which wasn't helping.

"Okay, okay," said Stuart. He leaned over, filling Sam's nostrils with the smell of cigarette smoke, and grabbed Max by the ears.

"Hey!" yelled Max. He struggled, but not very much. "Ow! Hey! Not my ears!"

He dropped Max back onto the balcony. Sam fell backwards.

"Thanks," said Sam. He looked at Max, and added "You can let go now, Max."

Max relaxed his grip on Sam's arms, and rubbed the top of his head. Sam rubbed some feeling back into his arms, then his knees. He hoped he didn't smell like cigarette smoke from touching Stuart. It was bad enough listening to Stuart's arguments with their mother. He didn't want to get into trouble as well.

"Let's go to my place tomorrow!" said Max suddenly. "The railing's lower there."

Sam sat up. He'd almost forgotten. "Uh... sorry, Max, but I'm going camping tomorrow."

"Camping?" said Max, puzzled. "Is that real? I thought TV made it up."

Stuart took his cigarette out of his mouth and blew smoke at them. "You're an moron, rabbit."

Max stood up and clenched his fists. "What did you say?"

"He saved your life," said Sam quickly. "And he's twice your size." A fight between Max and his big brother probably would be fun to watch, but Max would probably lose, and Sam would probably get in trouble for not stopping them. It wasn't worth it.

Max looked up at Stuart. "Not _twice_." But he subsided. "Can I come too?"

Sam looked at him. Then he looked at Stuart. "Uh... gee, Max. It's kind of a family thing." Now that he thought about it, he had to admit that he did want Max to come. As much as he enjoyed the camping parts, it wasn't fun to be stuck out in the woods with Stuart and Sarah, even overnight.

"No it's not!" protested Max. "I never go camping with _my_ family."

"It's a my family thing," clarified Sam. "I'll ask mom about it." Maybe the twins would pick on him less if Max was around, he thought. Beside, he felt kind of sorry for Max sometimes. Having two older siblings was bad enough. Having fifteen, or however many Max had, or however many Max had, was probably even worse.

Max grinned. "Thanks, Sam!"

–

They spent the rest of the afternoon safely indoors, watching TV. It was a little dull compared to the kinds of things they usually did together, but Sam wasn't allowed to run indoors, and he was double triple forbidden from doing it when Max was over.

Sam sat back in the couch, though not too far back because he didn't want to know what was living in it, and said "This show is kind of... lame."

"That's what makes it so great!" said Max. He laughed. "He wet himself again!"

"It's not that funny," Sam muttered, arms folded. He wasn't sure what he liked in a show exactly, but this wasn't it. There weren't even any explosions.

He stared at the screen for a while, until he heard the door open. "Mom, can..." he began.

"Not now, Sam," said his mother, barely looking at them. She swept past.

Max jumped up and started to follow. "Hey!"

"Don't!" said Sam, more loudly than he intended. "She'll be mad!"

"So what?"

"So... she'll be mad," said Sam. He tried to say with his eyes that this was the most horrible thing that could ever possibly happen ever, but it didn't seem to be working, probably because Max wasn't looking at him. He was looking down the hall, where Sam's mother had gone.

Eventually Max looked back at Sam. "Hey Sam, why are we talking to her again?"

"You wanted to ask her if you could come camping with us. Remember?" said Sam. It had been more than a year since they'd met, and Sam was getting used to Max's weird memory.

"Oh..." said Max, like he still didn't remember. "What's the point of camping? There's no TV at camping. Is there?"

Sam wasn't sure what the reason was, and said so. "It's not really something you need a reason for... But mom keeps saying something about getting back to our roots."

"Wolves or apes?" wondered Max.

"Huh?" said Sam. Had Max just said something smart? It was a bit unsettling when he did that. "I don't know. I never asked."

Sam's mother reemerged. Quickly, Max said "Hey Sam's mom, can I come camping with you?"

Sam's mother stood frozen in the doorway. Then she said "Uh... I don't know, Max. It's kind of a family thing."

"That's what Sam said!" said Max indignantly. "Except he said 'gee' instead of 'I don't know'."

"Please, can he come?" said Sam. "I don't think he's ever been on vacation." That was probably even true. Max's family was... weird.

Max widened his eyes and looked up at Sam's mother, clasping his hands in a pleading gesture. Sam had seen him do it before, and it rarely failed to get him what he wanted.

Today was no exception. Sam's mother sighed, and said "All right. As long as it's okay with your parents."

Max abandoned the pleading posture immediately. "All right! I'll phone them right now!" He ran for the phone and picked it up. "Hey Sam, what's my phone number?"

Sam just told him. There was no good reason for Max to know his own phone number, he guessed.

–

When Max hung up the phone, Sam whispered "Did you really talk to your parents?" From what Max had told him, they hadn't spoken since second grade.

"No!" said Max. He was probably rolling his eyes, but it was hard to tell since they were black all over. "I asked Robbie. He said it was cool."

Robbie was Max's older brother, and one of the few people that Max respected. Maybe the only one.

"Is he gonna tell your parents where you are?"

But Max had already gone back to watching TV.

–

Very early the next morning, Sam knocked on Max's door, then used his free hand to knock down a rat that was trying to pick his pocket. Rats weren't very smart, he thought, while he waited for somebody to open the door. Even the ones smart enough not to try running up his leg abseiled down from the ceiling right in front of him.

Nothing seemed to be happening inside Max's apartment, so Sam tried the door. It wasn't locked, and he let himself into a darkened, eerily quiet room. Sam had been in here before, but never so early in the morning, and it was creeping him out. Nobody was running around yelling, breaking things, or even practicing their acrobatics routines. He could smell people though, and his eyes were beginning to adjust, revealing whitish shapes slumped on the couches and the floor.

Sam wondered which one was Max. It was annoying. He'd told Max to be ready.

Before he could make a guess, someone said "Turn around slowly," and cocked a gun.

"Okay!" said Sam, frightened. Maybe he shouldn't have come here so early, but it wasn't his fault they always left before the sun was up. And now he was going to get mugged and killed.

Sam relaxed slightly when he saw the person threatening him, a teenaged rabbit with an eyepatch, but only slightly. He was _pretty_ sure that Robbie wouldn't mug and kill him, but there was always a little doubt.

"Oh, it's you," said Robbie. He lowered his gun and raised his voice. "Max! Your friend's here!"

Max ran in, grinning. "Hey, guess what, Sam! I didn't sleep!"

"Uh..." said Sam. He looked from Max to Robbie. Robbie was holding his gun idly by his side. He'd heard Robbie was in a gang.

"Have fun," said Robbie to Max. "And remember, if anyone gives you trouble, plug 'em."

"Okay!" said Max happily. He pulled Sam towards the door. "Come on, Sam, let's go!"

–

Once they were all packed into the car, Max said "Where are we going?"

Sam stared at him for a second, then said "Camping. Remember?" He hadn't thought Max's memory was _this_ bad.

Max shook his head. "Duh. I mean, where's the camping?"

"Oh," said Sam. He thought for a while, but could only come up with "Upstate?"

"Where's that?" said Max, staring at the roof of the car.

Sam looked up too, but he couldn't figure out what Max was looking at, so he stopped. "Uh... A few hours away."

"Wow! Good thing we're taking a car," said Max. "I don't wanna walk for hours."

Sam stared out the window. Countless buildings rushed by, and one kept pace. "It's hours away in a car."

Max squirmed in his seat. "You mean we have to sit here all that time? I'm bored!"

Stuart, who was sitting on the other side of Max, said "If you're bored, let's play Punch Buggy. It's Sam's favourite game!"

"No!" said Sam immediately.

"Punch what?" said Max, grinning.

"The rules are..." began Stuart.

Sam really didn't want to spend the whole trip being punched. "Don't listen to him, Max!" As he spoke, he began to wonder what was stopping him from punching back, but he decided that it had to be something important if he'd never thought of doing it before.

"Mom, Sam and Stuart are fighting!" said Sarah, from the front seat.

"He started it!" protested Sam. Stuart always started it. It wasn't fair.

"I hear them," said Sam's mother.

"Can I punch you anyway?" Max asked, grinning.

"No!" said Sam.

–

As the trip went on and the sun came up, Max began to fall asleep. Soon, he was lying with his head on Sam's lap. Sam pushed him away. Max flopped back down again.

Eventually, he jerked up and said "Are we there? Wow! The wilderness is weird!"

Sam looked out at the rows of identical houses, which stretched as far as he could see. "That's the suburbs, Max. The wilderness is after the suburbs." Weren't there suburbs back home, too? He was pretty sure there were.

"I knew that!" said Max. He was silent for a whole minute, then said "I'm hungry."

He leaned forward in his seat and closed his eyes. Sam poked him in case he was dead, but he just seemed to be asleep.

–

Finally, they pulled up at their usual camping site, which was surrounded by more trees than Sam saw during the rest of the year put together..

Sam nudged Max. When that had no effect, he hit him on the head. "Wake up. We're here."

Max opened his eyes, shook his head, and climbed over Sam to get to the door.

"Hey!" said Sam. He pushed Max away and opened the door, glad to able to stretch his legs.

"Don't roughhouse, Sam," said his mother.

"But Max...!" began Sam, then sighed. "Okay, mom." He took a deep breath through his nose. "It smells different out here, right, Max?" More like... trees, and less like... cars. Sam had a sensitive nose, but he wasn't very good at putting names to the smells.

Max sniffed a few times. "No. I'm hungry!" He looked around like he was expecting pancakes to drop out of the sky, which as far as Sam knew, only happened in the city.

–

"I'm still hungry," complained Max. He stared unblinkingly at Sam, who was having breakfast.

Sam brought another spoonful of dry dog food to his mouth. "Then eat something," he said with his mouth full, spraying crumbs. Across the rickety metal table, Sarah made a face, and moved her bowl out of the way.

"But your mom's breakfast cereal is made of wheat!" said Max. "That's _disgusting_!"

He continued to stare at Sam. Sam continued to eat. He felt a little sorry for Max, but what could he do? He didn't have any food Max could eat.

"What does that taste like?" Max asked, pointing at Sam's breakfast.

Sam swallowed. "It tastes like dog food." It was delicious and salty, but he didn't think Max would like it. He'd once seen Max eat a chair, but he probably wouldn't like this.

"Can I have some?" said Max, and, without waiting for an answer, crammed some kibble into his mouth. Intrigued, Sam watched the expression his face change a few times, before he finally swallowed it. "I still like it better than Wheatie-Wheats," Max concluded. "I'm still hungry."

Sam shrugged, and went back to his breakfast. He was still hungry too.

A couple of minutes later, Sarah said "Sam, your friend is eating a tree branch."

Sam turned around. He was. Sam turned back to his food.

"What is wrong with him?" Sarah pressed. "Why is he eating a tree?

"He's Max," said Sam. Probably there was something wrong with him, but as long as Max was fun to be around, Sam didn't really care.

"I have hyperkinesis!" yelled Max. He had good hearing, Sam remembered. Maybe that was what was wrong with him.

"Oh," said Sam. He tried to work that out. Hyperkinesis... that sounded like telekinesis... "You have psychic powers?"

"No, stupid, he likes touching things," said Sarah.

Stuart put down his spoon. "All rabbits are crazy," he said. "You ever heard of a sane rabbit?"

Sam glared at him. "That's speciest."

In response, Stuart pushed him into his breakfast bowl.

–

Max tried one more time to pay attention to what Sam was saying.

"I said, you shouldn't have done that," repeated Sam. The two of them were walking through the forest or whatever it was, Max hadn't been paying attention. Because something about needing to go away for a long time while... something. Max didn't know.

"But he pushed you!" protested Max. "And he called you stupid!" If Sam was going to be so ungrateful, maybe he should just stop helping him, he thought.

"That was Sarah," said Sam.

"Whatever." Max had never really learned to tell the difference between Stuart and whoever the other one was. They were the boring kind of dog, not like Sam. "Besides, we got him back down again. It's okay to hurt someone if they did something wrong. You said so! I remember!" If the rules were going to keep changing, maybe he should just go back to hitting whoever he wanted, he though.

Sam seemed confused. "Mom just doesn't like it," he said finally.

They continued walking in silence. Well, almost silence. There were some weird chirping noises coming from all around them, and Max was sure he could hear rustling. He looked around, but there was nothing there. He looked at Sam, who actually seemed to be smiling, and grabbed his arm. "Can't you hear that?" Sam just looked at him. If Sam was going to keep acting like there was nothing wrong, maybe he should just... actually, he was bored of thinking that way. "And there's no rats!" There were always rats. It was one of the laws of physics or something. "And what is that green stuff?" Max didn't like camping if it was going to be all creepy like this.

Sam pulled his arm away, looked in the direction that Max was looking, and said "Leaves?"

"I'm not a little kid," said Max, briefly abandoning his panic in favour of annoyance. "I know what leaves are, I saw them on TV." He pointed to the trunks of the trees. "What's _that_?" Tree trunks were brown. He'd seen them on TV as well, but these had green on them.

"Uh..." said Sam. He sniffed one. "Lichen?"

"Huh? What's lichen?"

"I don't know," said Sam. "I think it grows on tree bark."

Max grabbed Sam's arm again. "The wilderness is creeping me out. Let's go home n..."

The ground collapsed, and he fell, dragging Sam with him.

–

Sam opened his eyes. He tried to sit up, but his head throbbed so badly that he had to lie down again. "My head hurts," he said to nobody in particular.

"I don't care," said Max cheerfully, from somewhere behind him.

Sam tried to remember where they were. They were underground, but there was light coming from the roof... There was a small hole directly above him. Had they come down here from there? He couldn't remember anything like that. They'd been walking, and now there were down here.

And his head hurt.

Sam slowly realised that the crunching noise he could hear wasn't actually coming from inside his head, and he looked around, taking care not to move too quickly. Max was eating something brown and shiny. "What's that?" asked Sam.

Max bit off another piece and said "It's like candy, but not sweet." He offered one to Sam, who took it.

Sam stared at the brown thing, trying to stop himself from seeing double. It was hard, brown and smooth... Probably some kind of rock. Or maybe a valuable gem. But who'd want a little brown gem that kept going out of focus? Anyway, whatever it was, and it didn't seem to be edible. Sam tossed it away and struggled to his feet.

That was when he noticed that the walls of the cave weren't made of dirt. They were made of gems. Sam looked down. So was the floor. He stared for a couple of seconds, and then shrugged. "That's weird." To Max, who was still eating, he added, "How do we get out of here? Mom will be mad if we don't come back."

"I don't know," said Max, with his mouth full. "I thought you knew."

Sam looked up at the hole, but the bright light just made his headache worse, so he looked away. "Let's find an exit." He hoped the exit wasn't too far away. He didn't want to get into trouble for taking too long to come back.

They walked deeper into the cave, away from the light. It was so dark in there that they couldn't see at all, but at least Sam wasn't seeing double anymore.

"Neat!" said Max. He hit Sam in the face, but not very hard, so it was probably an accident. "Oops. Hey Sam, let's play tag!"

"In the dark?" said Sam. It sounded like fun, but his head already felt like it was going to split open, and he was scared that running into a wall might finish the job. "Maybe after my head gets better."

"Spoilsport," muttered Max.

They continued walking. Sam nearly fell over a couple of times.

"Why are we going downhill?" said Max, after a while.

Sam stopped and looked back the way they came, which didn't do much good. If they were going downhill, then they were going away from the surface... "Maybe we should go back..."

Max grunted. "That's boring. Let's keep going this way."

So they did. It was starting to get warmer, which probably meant that they were getting closer to the surface. They probably weren't going downhill like Max had said. Sam's head hurt so much that he couldn't really tell.

After a bit longer, he noticed that the ground was definitely getting steeper. After falling over a few more times, he started leaning more and more on Max for support.

Then Max tripped, and they slid down and down, until the ground was practically vertical. It was kind of fun, except they were sliding further and further away from the surface. They were definitely going to get in trouble at this rate.

Finally, the ground levelled out. "That was fun!" said Max. "Let's do it again!"

"Uh..." said Sam. His head still hurt, and it felt like there was a hole in his shorts. "Let's figure out how to get out of here first."

Max said nothing for a few seconds. "I don't get it."

Sam leaned against the wall, sure that he was going to fall over again. "Don't you wanna get out?"

"We can get out when we're done," said Max. "Jeez, ever since you fell ten feet onto your head, you've been such a crybaby wet blanket. Let's explore!"

They emerged from the tunnel into a larger cavern. Sam couldn't see it, but he could hear the way the sounds of their footsteps and Max's voice changed. Impressed with himself for noticing, he said "Did you hear about how blind people's senses get better because they can't see?"

"Oooh!" said Max. "More crystals!" Sam heard a snapping sound, then some crunching.

"I can't see you, but I know you're there, because I can hear you," continued Sam. He took a breath. "And smell you." Not that smelling Max was very hard even without being blind.

"Wow! This one's got water on it!" said Max, snapping off another piece.

Sam took a few more breaths through his nose. He'd never paid this much attention to what he smelled before. "I smell rocks... And gems... And... air..." The air had a weird smell to it that reminded him of a science lab he'd once visited. "And..." There was another weird chemical smell, but it was coming from the other end of the cavern. "There's something over there."

Max dropped some gems on the ground and said "Really? Let's go check it out!"

"Okay," said Sam. He _wasn't_ a crybaby wet blanket.

The smell got stronger as they got closer to it, and Sam started to hear a weird noise, like clicking, but wetter. "Is that you, Max?"

"It's just a roach," said Max. "Quit being such a baby."

"It doesn't smell like a roach," said Sam, who was getting carried away with this smell thing. "And also, roaches don't sound like that."

"Then what just tickled me?" said Max. "A giant roach feeler, duh!"

Sam stopped short. "Let's go now."

"Wuss," said Max, not quite under his breath.

As Sam stood there, conflicted between not looking girly and not dying, he felt a draft, and the smell got stronger.

"Come on, Sam!" said Max. He rushed forward.

A couple of seconds later, a loud squelching noise started, and Max rushed past Sam in the opposite direction. "Come on, Sam!"

Sam followed as fast as he could. It turned out that the pain in his head wasn't so bad when compared to whatever was chasing them. It was making weird laughing noises, and seemed to be right behind them.

After a few quadrillion years, Max pulled Sam into a gap in the rock. "Shhhh!" he said loudly, then yelped in surprise.

"What... Aah!" Something long and furry wrapped around them both, and tugged. Not knowing what else to do, Sam bit it.

It released them with what sounded like another laugh, and they backed further into the crack.

"I told you," said Sam, in between attempts to get the chemical taste out of his mouth.

"I'm scared," was all Max said.

There was a sound outside like a hundred balloons popping, and a rumbling noise from beneath them. A fountain of what was probably water spurted up, carrying them up through a hole in the rock and into a bright light, where it dropped them.

Sam fell onto his back and shut his eyes against the light. The pain in his head had come back. But at least he wasn't eaten.

"Sam?" said Max. "Are we dead?"

Sam forced one eye open, then the other. "I think we're back in the forest."

Max grinned. "That was fun! That's what I wanna do when I grow up!"

"Run around aimlessly into life-threatening danger only to be rescued at the last second by an unhinted at deus ex machina?" said Sam. He knew a lot of words. He usually tried not to use them all at once in a single sentence, but he was tired and in pain and he didn't care who didn't understand him.

"Yeah!" said Max. "What's a do sex machine?"

Behind them, the fountain that had saved them started shooting a substance with the appearance and smell of Diet Pepsi.

"That's not what I said," said Sam. This time he'd wait until his head stopped hurting before he stood up.

"When do we go home?" said Max. "It's getting dark!"

"We're staying overnight," said Sam. "That's what camping is."

"There's a whole other day to go..." said Max slowly. "We can go back down tomorrow!"

Sam closed his eyes again. Maybe tomorrow wouldn't be so painful.


	3. The School Dance

  
Share   


  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Sam turned on his computer.

Max glanced at it, and, before Sam could do anything else, said "Boring!"

"You haven't even seen it yet," said Sam, glaring at him.

Max raised a finger. "You should be outside playing in the fresh air, not staring at a computer all day," he recited. "Tut tut."

Sam glanced out the window of his room, where the late afternoon sun had turned the smog a pretty yellow colour, then looked back at his computer. "I just wanna show you a program I wrote." He glanced around to make sure that the book he'd copied the program out of was still under his bed where he'd kicked it.

Tonight was going to be interesting. The school was holding a dance, and Sam had been given money to spend. But before then, he really wanted Max to see his computer program. He ran it, and the computer began shaking and emitting unearthly howls.

"Awesome!" said Max. The computer started displaying a long list of letters, numbers and symbols. "Your computer is possessed! Just like my brother Rich's tape deck!" The random symbols became real words, and Max leaned forward. "Prize..."

"Praise," Sam corrected him. He'd run the program several times before, and it was the same every time. If it hadn't been so interesting, it might have worried him.

"Praise to the... lord... satin... wait! Satan! He w-ho... _who_ will..." Max lost interest and sat back. "Let's do an exorcism now! I'll get the priestly water!"

"Nah," said Sam. "My mom already tried that. I think I made a mistake in the program." He kicked the computer a few times to stop the program from running, and had a look at the source code.

After a few seconds, Max said "Sam?"

"I'm still thinking," said Sam. He wrinkled his forehead. One day he was going to figure out what all those dollar signs meant. Then he dived under his bed and consulted his book. He was lucky that Max didn't know how to use a keyboard, he thought.

"Ooh!" said Max. "Letters!" Sam tried to block him out. "Are you eating dust bunnies? That's racist, Max. They're Dust-Lago-Americans."

Sam dropped the book. Ever since they'd gone camping, Max had been weirder than usual. He'd thought he was imagining it because of his concussion, but he didn't have that anymore, and Max was still being weird. He looked out at Max. "Did you lick another hippy?"

"Every time I go to sleep a big furry squelch monster eats me!" said Max, grinning as widely as he always did.

Sam took another look at his book, which was turning out to be very hard to read without a light source, and crawled out. "You go to sleep, and I'll watch out for dream monsters." That way Sam would be able to fix his program without letting Max know he didn't write it, and Max would be able to sort of think, a little.

Max looked at him shrewdly. "You can't watch out. You don't even have a dream gun!"

"No," said Sam, "but I have a dream rocket launcher." Sometimes he wished he had a real rocket launcher.

"Ooh, now I see!" said Max. "It's in your jacket!"

Sam looked down. He was wearing a t-shirt. "Yeah. You should sleep"

"Okay!" said Max. He jumped onto Sam's bed and closed his eyes.

–

Sam shook Max awake. "Guess what, Max! I fixed my program!"

Max opened his eyes and looked around, blinking. "Shut up, Robbie," he said eventually.

"I'm Sam," said Sam, and felt his face to make sure he hadn't turned into a rabbit while he wasn't looking. "Robbie is your brother."

"You're kid Robbie," insisted Max. He shook his head violently. "Oh, hi Sam!"

"My program works!" said Sam, eager to get back to the topic. "I put in a greater than sign when it should have been a less than sign." He ran the program once more.

Max stared.

"That's lame," he said. "I want the Satan one back."

"But it's a bouncing percent sign!" said Sam. "You can change the direction, see?" He pressed some keys, and the percent sign bounced off a different side of the screen.

"Lame," insisted Max. "I thought we were going to a dance."

"That's not for..." Sam looked at his bedside clock. "Uh... five minutes." When had that happened? He was sure he'd only sat down a couple of minutes ago. "Uh... I have to take my cousin. She wanted to go." He'd been putting off bringing this up.

"You have a cousin who's a _girl_?" said Max.

"Yeah," said Sam. Max was reacting a lot better than he'd feared.

–

Sam's cousin was waiting at the bottom of the apartment building, passing the time by poking things in the gutter with a stick. "Hi Sam," she said, looking up.

"Hi Sam," replied Sam.

"Go away, Sam's girl clone," said Max. "We're waiting for Sam's cousin!"

"She _is_ my cousin," said Sam. He almost wanted to apologise for Max, something he'd never thought of before. He liked his cousin.

"I'm Sam," said Sam's cousin. "It's short for Samantha. You're Max, right?"

"That's just like a girl," said Max to Sam. "Pretending her name is the same as your name when it isn't."

"My full name is Samuel," said Sam. He could never tell if Max was joking or not.

Max looked from Sam to Samantha and back to Sam again, reminding Sam of a rubber band that was about to snap. He should probably say something.

"Just forget it," he tried.

"Okay!" said Max, and snapped out of it.

–

The walk to the school was mostly uneventful. Sam and Max walked ahead and discussed whether or not space rangers were better than space smugglers, and Samantha walked a few paces behind, thinking about whatever girls thought about. They were nearly there when they walked past an alley, and heard somebody pleading for their life.

Once they were safely out of range, Samantha said, "Maybe we shouldn't be cheerfully trekking through the mean streets so late in the day."

The mean streets. That was from a movie or a TV show or something. "It's okay," said Sam. "Max acts as a more than adequate line of a defense against would-be assailants."

"You guys suck," said Max, who was confused again. "Use real words!"

"Sorry," said Sam, who had forgotten that not everybody read the dictionary for fun. "We always use big words."

"The best word is "loquaciousness," said Samantha, making Sam laugh and Max scowl.

–

They arrived at the school and went into the gym, which where the dance was being held. Immediately after walking in, they were assaulted by the loudest sound Sam had ever heard. He cringed, and put his hands over his ears, which didn't block out the noise at all. It did allow him to hear it clearly, however. It was... music? It reminded him of his dad, who was always listening to the radio when he was home. So it was probably music.

The gym was a dim haze of flashing purple and blue lights, and kids standing around awkwardly. Next to Sam, Max and Samantha were covering their ears as well, which was good. Sam had been worried that it was just him.

After what felt like a long time, Paul, a curly-haired boy in Sam's class, walked by and said something mean. Sam couldn't hear him. Max said something mean back, but Sam couldn't hear him, either. Finally, his head stopped hurting enough for him to take his hands away. Now he didn't feel like those tiny bones in his ear were breaking anymore. Maybe they already had. And the sound almost sounded like music, even without covering his ears.

"That was fun!" said Max loudly. "Let's dance now!"

Sam looked him strangely. Maybe he'd misheard. His ears still didn't feel very good. "Dance?"

"Aren't we at a dance?" said Max, looking around at the nobody who was dancing.

"Let's get snacks!" suggested Samantha.

"Yeah!" said Sam. He hadn't come to dance. He had money, and they were selling candy in the corner of the room. To Max, he said "You dance, and we'll get candy."

Max started making a strange hopping motion. Sam stared for a second, then he and Samantha went to get candy.

–

"Are you sure you're happy with all that, mate?" said the purveyor of sugary delights, who was probably someone's dad. He sounded British or something. "You'll be sick tomorrow."

Sam looked down at his bulging pockets and nodded. His mother wouldn't have given him so much money if she hadn't wanted him to use it. He still had a little left, and he eyed the squares of what looked like chocolate wrapped in paper. He loved chocolate. Unfortunately, it didn't like him very much. "What kind of chocolate is that? My mom says I can't have dark chocolate." Or cocoa. Or baking chocolate, but he wasn't exactly sure what that was.

"It's cooking chocolate," said someone's dad.

"That should be okay," said Sam, and handed over some more money. To Samantha, he said "Do you want any?"

"I'm not allowed to have chocolate..." said Samantha, looking hungrily at the wrapped squares.

Sam put it in his pocket and pulled out a box of Milk Duds, which he opened. "I'll show you around," he said with his mouth full.

They walked around the outskirts of the gym. "That's a window," said Sam, pointing. He pointed down. "That's stripes." He pointed up. "That's ropes."

Samantha nodded.

A couple of boys emerged from the crowd of people. "Hey, Sam!" said one.

"That's Tris and that's Paul," said Sam. "Tris used to be a bully but he's not anymore." At least, he didn't hit people as often anymore.

Tris scowled. "You don't have to say that to everyone."

Sam ignored him. "And Paul is from Base 12. I think it's on the moon."

"It's not a place!" snapped Paul. "It's a way of counting!"

"Why do you go to the moon to count?" said Samantha, sounding interested.

While Paul was growling with frustration, Tris said "Paul said you and Max were covering your ears like little girls."

"We were not!" said Sam. He realised what Tris was talking about, and added, "The music was loud!"

Tris laughed. "You're such a baby, Sam."

"Leave him alone," said Samantha. "It really is loud!"

Sam winced. Now everyone was going to pick on him for needing a girl to defend him. Then he remembered that everybody picked on him already, and stopped wincing.

"What would you know?" said Paul. "You're a... Are you a girl?" He squinted.

"Yes!"

Sam didn't know what Paul was talking about. She was obviously a girl. It was obvious from her face.

"What would you know?" repeated Paul. "You're a girl!"

Sam had had enough of this. "Let's go find Max, Sam," he said.

"Yeah, okay," said Samantha, still looking at Paul weirdly.

They wandered through the surreal wonderland of flashing lights and rhythmic thumping for a bit longer. Eventually, they found Max hiding behind a set of chairs.

"What happened?" said Sam.

"Weren't you dancing?" said Samantha.

"Jennie keeps asking me to dance with her," said Max. He shivered. "She keeps looking at me funny. I don't wanna dance with her. You have to tell her to stop bugging me!"

"Who's Jennie?" said Samantha.

"Just a girl," said Sam. He remembered who he was talking to and added "The bad kind of girl." He didn't want to talk to her any more than Max did, so he just poured some more Milk Duds into his hand.

Max jumped out from under the chair. "Did you get any candy for me?"

"Uh..." said Sam. He unwrapped the chocolate, which turned out to four blocks in size, and gave half to Max. "Here." The less chocolate he ate, the less around his mouth for his mother to see when he got home.

"Oh boy!" said Max, and ate it in one gulp.

Sam ate his chocolate more slowly. He sat down, looking around nervously for Jennie. "Look," he said. "There's one of Jennie's friends."

Max looked. "Yeah!" he said. "Hey, Pelanie!" he called. "Pelanie!"

Pelanie came up to them and Samantha said "Did you say 'Pelanie'?"

"You have to tell Jennie to stop being so weird to Max," said Sam.

"We're not friends anymore," said Pelanie, and walked away again.

"Aww," said Max, then said some words that Sam pretended he didn't know. Max didn't sound angry enough to be using them, so he probably didn't know what they meant at all.

"Is her name really Pelanie?" said Samantha.

"Yeah," said Sam. "So?" He swallowed. He was beginning to feel a bit sick. Maybe he'd bought too much candy.

"It's Jennie!" said Max suddenly. "Hide me!"

"Uh..." said Sam. He stood up unsteadily and walked in front of Max, which didn't really do much to hide him.

"Get out of the way, Sam," said Jennie, with her hands on her hips.

"Max is hiding," said Sam. He frowned. That sounded wrong, somehow.

Jennie reached around Sam and took Max by the hand. "May I have this dance?" she said, as sweetly as was possible while still yelling to be heard over the music.

Sam sat back down on an empty chair. He needed to sit down.

"Okay," said Max.

Sam's head was pounding in time to the music. That was weird.

Jennie let go of Max's hand in surprise. "Really?"

"Yeah," said Max. "Go ahead and take it away."

Jennie made an aggravated noise and said something else, but Sam wasn't paying attention. The lighting had turned into new colours that he'd never seen or thought about before, which was strange, because because they made perfect sense if he thought about. It made all the chairs look like... or alpacas, maybe llamas solenodonodons. He slid off his chair, into the water.

"Sam?" said the sky.

"Max was right about the dust," replied Sam. He thought about that for a second. "Am I on Eris?"

Someone hit him.

Sam realised that he was lying on the floor of the gym during a school dance.

"Are you okay now?" said Max, his hand still raised. "Should I hit you again?"

"I think so," said Sam. He looked around. Jennie was gone. Samantha was eating something. "I think- Ow! Hey!"

Max had hit him again. "I had to do it," he said to Samantha. "He was still talking crazy talk."

"Hey!" said Sam, realising what she was eating. "My Milk Duds!"

"It's for your own good," said Samantha, with her mouth full. "I think you're poisoned. You shouldn't have any more chocolate."

But... his Milk Duds... Sam opened his mouth to mention them again, and nearly threw up. "I feel sick..." He stood up, clutching at the chair for support, and looked out the door that led to the playground. He really didn't want to use a public bathroom again. Not after summer camp. But maybe it would be okay if Max was with him.

Max and Samantha helped him outside, and the music faded, leaving a loud ringing in Sam's ears.

"Hey Sam, are you dying?" said Max. "I hope not."

Sam thought about it. He wasn't hallucinating anymore, and even if cooking chocolate was the same as baking chocolate, which he was beginning to think was the case, he'd only eaten two blocks. There couldn't be enough to kill him in two blocks. "I don't think so..."

"Oh, good," said Max. "Your mom would kill you if you died."

"That's not funny," said Sam. It really wasn't.

Sam and Max went into the boy's bathroom, and Samantha stood guard outside.

"Watch out for bullies," Sam told Max, and stared at a toilet bowl for a while. It was weird, but getting outside, out of the noise, had made him feel a lot better. He barely felt sick at all now. "I think..." The sight of the toilet bowl brought back horrible memories of summer camp. That did it. He threw up.

"I give it a 6 out of 10," said Max, who was watching him instead of keeping a look out for bullies. "Good force, but you need to work on your technique."

"Shut up, Max," said Sam. Then he frowned. The ringing in his ears had nearly gone, and he could hear girls' voices. "Do you hear that?"

Max listened. "Yeah," he said. "I guess I caught chocolate off you while you were puking."

"I think they're coming from the girls' bathroom," said Sam, trying to make out the words. He used his hand to lift up his right ear.

"I'm so glad they rebuilt the bathroom walls out of cardboard after the Luke Sywalker Incident," exposited Max.

"Shhh!"

"Just give it to him, okay?" said someone who either was Jennie or sounded exactly like her. Either way, it was an amazing coincidence.

"You promised!" said Pelanie, or maybe Melanie. They sounded almost exactly the same, so it was hard to tell.

"I'll give you the... you know what... when you give Max the candy!" snapped Jennie.

Max turned to Sam. "Did you hear that! I'm getting more candy!"

"I thought Pelanie and Jennie weren't friends today..." said Sam. Nobody ever bribed anyone to give him candy.

Through the wall, Pelanie said "Where did you even get a love potion, anyway?"

"Did she say love potion?" said Max. Sam nodded. "I feel sorry for whoever she gives that to."

"I think she wants to give it to you," said Sam thoughtfully. "If she gives you candy, don't take it." He didn't think Max would remember him saying that because he never did, but he should at least try. He'd seen people who'd been given love potions on TV, and he didn't want that to happen to his best friend.

"Huh?" said Max. "Me? Why?"

"Let's get back to the dance before they hear us," said Sam. If Max still hadn't figured it out, he wasn't going to tell him. It was too much fun waiting for him to realise.

They went back outside, and Max said, "Guess what, girl Sam! Jennie's got a boyfriend!"

"Doesn't she..." began Samantha.

Sam shook his head. "Don't tell him," he said. Then he added "She's going to brainwash him into loving her with love potion candy. We should stop her." An idea was beginning to form in his head, but it wouldn't be easy to do.

Samantha leaned against the wall and sighed. "Isn't that illegal? We should tell a grown up."

"Girl you is a tattletale!" Max complained.

Sam shook his head. "I have a plan." Besides, all girls were tattletales. It was one of the laws of physics, probably.

–

They were ready for the music this time, but it was still shockingly loud. Sam covered his ears again, and tried to steel himself for his plan. First he had to... They were coming this way. Paul and Tris. They were probably going to pick on him again. Sometimes they were nice, but tonight they were picking on him. Sam smoothed down his shirt a few times, and said "Hi."

"You're still..." began Paul, in a mocking tone of voice.

"Shut up, not Tris!" said Max. "Shut up, Tris!" he added just in case. He adopted a threatening pose.

Tris looked confused. "At least we don't keep setting the cafeteria on fire," he said, recovering.

"That only happened once," said Sam. The other times were accidents.

At the same time, Max said "I said, shut up!"

"We're talking to you," said Paul. "Talk talk talk talk talk ta-"

Max leapt at them.

Sam and Samantha watched.

"Your friend is a good fighter," said Samantha, as Max knocked Tris and Paul's heads together. She smiled.

"Yeah," said Sam. "He's teaching me how to... Huh?"

Tris and Paul walked away, leaving Max tied to the bottom of a chair. Sam wasn't sure how he'd got there. He should have paid more attention. "They tricked me!" said Max. "Let's put itching powder in Tris' hat, and set it on fire!"

That was tempting, but... "I have a better idea," said Sam, untying him.

"Tell a grown up?" said Samantha, hopefully.

Max dusted himself off. One of his ears was stuck down the back of his head, but he didn't seem to notice.

"No, we..." Sam trailed off when he saw Pelanie approaching. She was holding something behind her back. The love potion candy?

"Uh..." she said to Max. She pulled a giant blue lollipop out from behind her back. "You can have this because you're the only one with a mouth big enough to eat it."

Max took it, and Pelanie walked away. "Wow!" To Sam, he said, "Look, people are giving me candy!" He opened his mouth wide.

"No!" said Sam and Samantha in unison.

"If you eat that, you'll fall in love with Jennie!" said Sam.

Max closed his mouth and looked at the lollipop in revulsion. "Ew. Gross. You eat it, Sam." He rubbed the back his head, and his ear returned to its normal position.

"Let's give it to Tris or Paul," suggested Sam. That was his big plan. They deserved it for picking on them.

"Yeah!" said Max. "Great idea!"

Samantha didn't look happy, but she didn't say anything.

They found the two boys standing awkwardly in the middle of the room. Some kids really were dancing by now, but only the lame ones.

Sam took a deep breath and said, "Max says he's sorry for biting your heads."

"No I'm-" began Max. Sam elbowed him in the neck.

"And he wants you to give you this," said Sam, signalling Max. Max handed over the lollipop, holding it as far away from his body as possible.

Paul took it, and squinted. "I heard someone had a love potion lollipop."

"Uh..." said Sam. He hadn't thought of this. He began to panic. "I uh... It's..."

"Love potions can't be blue," interrupted Samantha. "Everyone knows that!"

"What would a girl know?" said Paul.

"Yeah!" said Tris.

Sam took a few deep breaths. "She's right," he said. "Love potions can't be blue. Even... Even girls know that!"

Tris snatched the lollipop off Paul and glared at his friend. "We know! We were just seeing if you knew." He grabbed the top part of the lollipop in both hands and tried to break in half.

Satisfied, Sam, Max, and Samantha walked away.

"That was great, Sam!" said Max. "You hardly started to cry at all."

Sam smiled. "I've been practicing," he said. He pulled some Smarties out of his pocket and offered them around. He'd really got revenge on someone, with barely any help.

It was fifteen minutes of candy and yelling above the music before they saw Tris and Paul again. They were trailing after Jennie with blank looks on their faces. Sam nudged Max. "Look!"

"What happened to them?" said Max.

"They ate a love potion," said Samantha. To Sam, she said "Is he always like this?"

Sam nodded. "Aren't you glad you didn't eat the love potion, Max?" he said, to demonstrate.

"What love potion?"

"I guess you want to dance with me now," said Jennie, holding out her hand.

"I want to dance with her," said Tris in a monotone, staring straight ahead.

"No," said Paul, equally blankly. "I want to."

"Quiet, boys," said Jennie. "I'm talking to Max."

Max stared at them for a few seconds. "Uh... oh yeah. We foiled your evil plot! Is foiled really a word?"

"Don't tell her that!" said Sam. She couldn't beat them up, which was good, but she could tell on them and get them into trouble.

Jennie laughed. "You did not. You did everything I wanted you to."

Max said "Huh?"

Samantha said "What?"

Sam said "You can't end a sentence with 'to' it's a preposition."

"I knew you had good hearing when you walked in, because you covered your ears," said Jennie to Max. "I donated those chocolates to the snack bar because your weird friend will eat anything, and my dog ate one square of baking chocolate and nearly died."

"Hey..." began Sam. He didn't like being compared to people's pets.

"Don't butt in, Sam!" yelled Jennie. "It's rude! Like I was _saying_ , I waited until you went to the bathroom, and told Pelanie about the love potion in the girl's bathroom. I knew you'd be too smart to take it after that, Max, so you'd give it to people you didn't like instead. And you did! I win!"

Sam had a lot of questions, like how this made her win or why she didn't just give the potion to Max in the first place, but he asked the first that came to mind. "What did you tell Pelanie you'd give her if you helped her?"

"I can't tell _you_ ," said Jennie, rolling her eyes. "You're a _boy_."

"You can tell me," said Samantha suddenly. "I'm a girl."

Jennie looked at her skeptically. "You are?" Then she shrugged, and whispered in her ear.

Samantha gasped. "A training bra?"

Sam didn't even know what that was, except that it was a girl thing.

"Thanks a lot, um... Thanks a lot, girl Sam!" said Jennie, stamping her foot. "Now the whole school knows!"

"Don't worry I'll beat them up for you," said Tris.

"And I'll do it better," said Paul.

They were acting so... creepy. And didn't people on love potions know what was happening to them? The whole time? Sam almost felt bad, but then he remembered that Jennie had manipulated them into doing it. So it was technically her fault. Not his. He wondered if Tris and Paul would feel that way when it wore off.

Jennie smiled. "Aren't you just so jealous, Max?"

Max thought very hard. "Uh... no?"

There wasn't a long silence because the music was still thumping in their ears, but the way Jennie look at him, there should have been. "But... seeing me with these boys you don't like? Doesn't that make you a little jealous?"

"Maybe I don't wanna hang out with a girl all day," said Max. "Girls are dumb."

Jennie stared with her mouth open for a long moment.

"Are you okay Jennie," said Tris.

"Yeah are you okay," said Paul.

"Go away I was here first," said Tris, raising a fist mechanically.

"This is all your fault, Melanie!" yelled Jennie.

"Melanie wasn't in this..." began Sam.

Without warning, Jennie pushed him over and ran away to the other side of the gym.

"Wait up Jennie," said Tris, chasing her.

"Wait for me first," said Paul, doing to the same.

Sam got up and rubbed his back. He hadn't been expecting a girl to push him. That was probably why he'd hit the floor so hard. She wouldn't have been able to do it otherwise.

"That was exciting," said Samantha.

"This kinda thing pretty much happens every week," replied Sam. Usually nobody gave him enough poison to kill himself with, but other than that it was a pretty standard evening.

Samantha thought about this. "I wanna go to your school."

"Me too!" said Max, who'd apparently lost track of the conversation.

Sam was getting really sick of yelling to be heard above the music. He wished they'd turn it off.


	4. Money Troubles

  
Share   


  
  
  
  
  
  
  


_Sam inhaled deeply. "You smell that, Max?"_

 _Max sniffed a few times as well. "I love the smell of rampant consumerism in the morning!"_   
_Rampant consumerism was not the phrase that Sam would have associated with the 41st annual Hippie Commune and Cook Out festival, but there'd be time to debate that later. "Takes me back to... ugh!" Sam stumbled backwards. Whatever the smell reminded him of, it wasn't anything pleasant._

 _"Oh, that," said Max dismissively. "That's just the smell of impending and inevitable doom, Sam. It's been following us since we were kids!"_

 _Sam doubted Max's claim very much. He knew what doom smelled like, and that wasn't it. "Whatever it is, it's making my tail hurt," he replied. It was true, somehow. He could feel an ache there like he hadn't felt in decades._

 _Max looked confused. "Didn't you have your tail removed when you were a kid because, uh..."_

 _Sam jumped. That was it! Now he remembered. "Oh..." he said thoughtfully. He'd repressed that memory, apparently. And for good reason._

 _"Story!" said Max. He jumped up and down. "Story!"_

 _"Well, all right," said Sam, ruffling the fur on the top of Max's head. "It was a particularly traumatising period of my youth. I was abandoned in the middle of the city, concussed, picked on by little girls, chased by a horrific abomination, catapulted into "_

 _"Sounds like a typical weekend for you," interrupted Max._

 _"Quiet, rockhead," said Sam. "But the worst childhood trauma of them all began on a chilly Thursday evening... On a... chilly..."_

 _He stopped. It had begun then, but Sam couldn't remember nearly enough of it for a proper flashback._

 _"Uh, began on a chilly Friday day..." he corrected himself. Yeah. He remembered enough of that part._

 _.  
_

Sam sighed again, more loudly this time. He wondered when Max was going to ask him what the matter was. They were sitting under the big, leafless tree in the school playground, where they always sat during recess. At least when they weren't exploring the roof or trying to make a volcano by digging into the Earth's mantle or anything like that. It was their spot, and nobody ever tried to take it from them. Max made sure of that.

Sam watched Max torture a worm he'd found, and sighed one more time. Max wasn't going to ask. Sam was going to have to tell him.

"Did you know genies don't always grant wishes?" he tried.

Max glanced up. "Huh?"

At least he had his attention now. "Sometimes they try to kill you."

Max dropped the worm and grinned. "Really?"

Sam frowned. Max wouldn't be so excited if it was happening to him. Probably. "My dad says he upset a genie and now it's coming for us." He didn't know what his dad's job was, exactly, but it seemed to involve a lot of business trips to far off places. Which was the one good thing about this. The genie was still far off.

"So just catch it in a lamp!" said Max. "My little sister Hannah has one. Let's take it!"

"Nah, Dad says regular lamps won't work," replied Sam. Genies were really dangerous, apparently. He still couldn't believe this was happening. It was too scary. "He says we need a special... genie remover." He wasn't sure about that part, but that was what his father had said. "But we can't afford one."

"Then come live with me," suggested Max. "We haven't seen Rachel for _weeks_. You can take her place!" He grinned again.

Sam thought about Max's living conditions, and winced. "No thanks." Besides, if the genie knew where he lived, it wouldn't fooled if he moved. "Sarah thinks we should try and make a thousand dollars for the special anti-genie remover."

"Just sell your computer," said Max. "Duh. It's worth, like, a million dollars."

"No!" said Sam. Why did everybody always suggest that? He wasn't selling his computer. He needed it so he could be a computer person when he grew up. "What do you do when you need money?" Max had the biggest and poorest family he knew, so they knew some creative ways to get money.

Max gave him the closest thing to a shrewd look that he was capable of. "Wait for my big brothers and sisters to get it, stupid! Sometimes Robbie takes me with him. He says I have an innocent face."

"What does he when he takes you along?" said Sam. Sometimes Max needed to be asked a few different ways before he'd answer a question.

"Huh?" said Max, who'd found the worm again.

"When your brother takes you with him when he gets money," said Sam, a little annoyed.

"I dunno," said Max. He hit the worm against the trunk of the tree a few times. "Look, it bounces!"

Sam sighed. Max didn't have any workable ideas. They only proper way of getting money that Sam could think of was to get a job, but... "Stupid child labour laws."

The worm had almost stopped wriggling, so Max threw it away. "You're not even good at anything except telling everyone not to do stuff."

And even that got him nothing but beaten up. "Yeah..." said Sam, staring at the ground.

.

After school, they went to Max's place, partly because Sam didn't want to go home without a plan. He was sure that his brother and sister each had one, and he knew they were going to rub it in his face. They always did.

A water balloon hit Sam in the nose as he walked through the door. It burst, and something that didn't smell of anything splattered all over him. If he was lucky, it was water.

"Oops!" said a rabbit whose name Sam had forgotten. "I was aiming for Max."

"Go away!" Max retorted intelligently. "We've got big kid things to think about!"

"We're the same age, blockhead!" said the water balloon rabbit.

Max stepped forward menacingly. "Oh yeah? Prove it!"

Sam dragged Max over to a blanket, which was also Max's bed. He didn't want him to get distracted. "I need money, remember?"

Max blinked a few times, then said "I could enter a chess tournament! I beat _you_ once, and you're a nerd."

Sam glared at him. "You threw a sandwich at me and rearranged the pieces while I wasn't looking." He hadn't even arranged them so that Sam was checkmated. Just announced that he'd won.

"The old sandwich gambit," said Max, standing up and putting his hands behind his back. "It's in a book." He sat down again.

"No it's not!" said Sam. He sat further back on the blanket to stop a couple of toddlers from tripping over his feet. "I wish I knew how to make lemonade."

Max opened his mouth.

"You can't put blood in lemonade," added Sam, who'd heard Max's recipe before. "It's immoral."

Max closed his mouth. Then he said "Uh... Sell yourself into slavery?"

Sam shook his head. "I'm pretty sure that's illegal, Max."

"You probably wouldn't be worth much anyway."

They lapsed into silence. Sam tried not to think about what it would mean if his family couldn't afford the genie remover. He wished he'd never heard of genies.

"Hey kids, what's the matter?"

Sam looked up. It was Max's older brother, Robbie. The eye that wasn't covered by his eyepatch looked almost concerned.

"Sam has to get a thousand dollars or he'll die from a genie," said Max. He yawned and stretched.

"What about his com " began Robbie.

"No!" said Sam, more loudly than he intended. He wasn't selling his computer. He wasn't.

Robbie and Max stared at him for a second, then Robbie looked thoughtful.

"Sam, do you have a tail?" he said at last.

Sam wrinkled his forehead. He wondered if that counted as an inappropriate question. The speaker who'd come to the school the month before hadn't been clear about that. "Uh... Yeah," he said uncertainly.

"Can you show me?"

Sam looked at Max. Now that he thought about it, he had no idea what an inappropriate question was. On one hand, he sometimes suspected that Robbie was just as crazy as Max, but better at hiding it. On the other, he really didn't want to die. "Uh... Okay..."

Sam made sure not many people were watching, and pulled down the back of his shorts a little way, just to the base of his tail. After a few painful attempts to free his tail, which was squashed between his shorts and his legs, he gave up and pulled it out with his hand.

Max stared.

Robbie said "Hm..."

Sam turned his head as far as he could, but he still couldn't see his tail very well.

"Can you move it?" said Robbie.

"I think so..." said Sam. Pants made for humans were much cheaper to get than custom made pants for dogs, so his tail had been squashed for most of his life. He wagged it weakly.

"I get it!" said Max suddenly. "You wanna start a freak show!"

Robbie shook his head. "Puppy dog tails are worth a fortune on the..." He stopped himself and looked at Sam. "I mean, they're valuable to the homunculus industry."

"Huh?" said Sam. He knew what a homunculus was it was an artificially created human but he didn't know what his tail had to do with anything.

"Well," said Robbie, "do you know what little girls are made of?"

"Uh..." said Sam. He knew what people were made of, but he didn't think there was any reason to mention little girls specifically. "Carbon?"

"Guess again," said Robbie. He glanced around and raised his voice. "Martin, put that down right now! Martin, I'm counting to three..."

Little girls, thought Sam. He was smart. He sometimes got As. He could figure this out. A thought occurred to him, and he tried "Sugar, spice and all things nice?"

Martin must have put whatever it was down, because Robbie looked back at him. "Right," he said approvingly. "And little boys?"

Sam still didn't get it. "Snips, snails and... Oh..." Puppy dog tails. Sam tried to wag his tail again. "Is it really that valuable?"

Robbie smiled. "I know a few guys, and I can introduce you for, say... a ten percent cut?"

Sam knew that he was talking about something illegal. But he didn't want to die. "O... Okay." He wouldn't miss his tail, he told himself. He never used it anyway. Losing it would be better than dying. Unless he died from losing it.

"Hold out for twenty percent!" said Max in a loud whisper.

Sam looked at him. "But then I'd get less money."

"Twenty is _more_ than ten," said Max in a superior tone of voice. "Duh! When I sell my tail, I'm holding out for thirty."

Robbie patted Max on the head. "Don't be silly. Your tail is completely worthless."

"Think of the baby koalas!" protested Max.

Sam was a bit relieved that Robbie didn't seem to know what Max was talking about either.

.

It was getting dark by the time Sam got home, but he was almost too preoccupied to care. Robbie had told him to come back at noon tomorrow, so now he had two things to terrify him.

He unlocked the door and opened it slowly, hoping that nobody would notice him come in. Especially his mother. She scared him when she was stressed.

"Sam!"

Sam jumped and spun around. His older sister, Sarah, was standing behind him, glaring. He wondered why she'd been waiting behind the door, but found that he was too surprised to talk.

"Where have you been?"

"Max..." Sam managed.

Sarah rolled her eyes. "Typical. While you were off messing around with your psycho friend, some of us were actually trying to save all our lives."

This made Sam feel a bit better. Maybe he wouldn't need to chop off his tail after all.

" _I_ got a job clearing up Meaty's Meat," said Sarah. "It pays two dollars an hour!" She folded her arms, smug.

Sam mentally divided a thousand by two to make sure it was still what he thought it was. Then he tried to figure out how to put it so that his sister wouldn't hit him. He failed. Instead, he said "What about the child labour laws?"

"What are you talking about, Sam?" said Sarah. "I'm fifteen!" She winked at him.

Sam stared. Was there something wrong with her eye? "No you're not, you're "

Sarah hit him over the head. "I _said_ , I'm fifteen!"

"Ow!"

Sam staggered over to the table and sat down, resting his head on one hand. He was hungry, but maybe he should save money by not eating anything. After a second, he jumped up and ran to his room to make sure that his computer hadn't been sold.

It was still there, and Sam sighed with relief. He returned to the main room, and got a bag of chips and some red liquorice to eat while he didn't think of tomorrow.

After dinner that night, Sam sat at the table and practiced for Monday's spelling test, if Monday ever came. He was having a hard time concentrating; His mind kept going back to everything he'd ever read about genies. He wrote the letters d-j-i-n-n, then scribbled over them as many times as he could. He told himself that if he did survive, and didn't pass this test, then he'd probably never get into college and then he'd be doomed to a life of petty theft or something. But somehow, concentrating was harder than ever.

Sam's biggest ambition was to become a Jedi, but he didn't think they offered that in colleges. They'd probably get sued by the Star Wars people. He hoped that they at least offered space ranger classes. That was his second choice.

The phone rang, shattering his concentration again. Sam pulled his ears down flat against his ear holes to block out the distractions, then realised that he couldn't write without his hands. So instead, he ate some liquorice and listened to his mother's phone conversation.

She didn't say much. Just, "Hello?", then "Really," in her hard voice that made Sam cringe instinctively, then "I'll be right there".

"Who was that?" said Sarah, who never seemed to be concerned when their mother got angry.

"The police station," said their mother. "It's your brother."

Sam bent over his homework. It was almost definitely about Stuart, unless someone had found out about that time he and Max had found that giant magnifying glass, but he didn't want to catch her attention.

Sarah made an exasperated noise. "I told him not to do that! Am I the only one who has a proper plan around here?"

Their mother didn't reply, but Sam knew that there'd be arguing and hitting when she got back. He'd have to be in his room by then.

.

"Pleeaase, can I go in with you?" whined Max.

Robbie took a good natured swipe at his head. "For the last time, not until you're older!"

Sam would have felt better if Max had gone in with them. Even he thought the street corner they were on looked run down, and he lived on a street where the reason none of the kids stepped on the cracks was that the ground would give way under their feet. The building in front of them, Shady Front's Social Club, looked even worse. Even the roaches were refusing to go near it.

"It's too dangerous for a kid your age," added Robbie, which didn't make Sam feel any better.

Max folded his arms and glared at the ground. "Then how come Sam gets to go inside?"

"He has to," replied Robbie.

Sam was having second thoughts about this. He couldn't even look at the building for very long. "Uh... Mr Robbie? Sir? I, uh..."

Robbie looked over at him. "You're not backing out on me, are you?" he said in a consoling tone of voice.

Sam stuttered for a few seconds, and managed to say "Cut it off at your apartment and you go in."

"Yeah!" said Max, clearly revitalised by the prospect of doing something gruesome. "What Sam said!"

Robbie shook his head. "My... friends will never believe it's a talking dog tail unless they see you for themselves."

Sam squeezed his eyes shut, in case it was all a dream. But a rat ran over his foot, and he opened his eyes to find that he was still there. He thought about what would happen if he didn't go in, and wondered if it would be more painful. Probably. "I'll do it," he mumbled. He wished he was at home, eating monk paste straight out of the jar. It always calmed him down, as long as his mother didn't see him do it.

"Great!" said Robbie, and took his hand. To Max, he said "Guard the street, okay?"

Max grinned. "He _trusts_ me!" he told Sam, as Robbie took him inside.

The first thing Sam noticed when they got inside was the heavy smell of smoke. There was cigarette smoke, marijuana smoke, and... Sam sniffed. Was that wood smoke?

Otherwise, the room looked like every other normal, partially ruined lobby he'd been in. Sam turned to Robbie and said "Is there a fire in here?" Wood smoke wasn't something he normally expected to smell inside a room, even in late fall.

Robbie laughed. "I'll tell you when you're older, kid. Now come on." He led Sam through a door and down some stairs.

The smell got stronger. Sam held his nose, then wondered if that was rude and let go of it again. His stomach hurt.

Robbie knocked on a door. "It's me. Open up."

A giant magpie as tall as Sam's dad opened the door. He had a lit twig in his mouth, which he chewed as he regarded them. "You said you had a _talking_ dog, Harvey," he said to Robbie. But he opened the door and let them in anyway.

The smoke was so dense that Sam couldn't see much, and could smell even less, but several more twig smoking magpies came out of the fog to stare at him. Sam tried to make himself small.

"Of course he can talk, Jeckle! Look at him!" Robbie nudged Sam. "Say something," he hissed.

Sam tried to unfreeze his brain. "H-hello... Why are you smoking a twig?"

The magpie who'd let them in looked thoughtful. "You could be right for once, Bugs," he said to Robbie. Then he said something else.

And...

.

 _Sam trailed off, and shook his head to clear it._

 _"And then what happened?" said Max._

 _"I... don't remember," admitted Sam. He must have blocked it out. He'd been such a wimpy kid that he wasn't totally surprised. He concluded that remembering would probably undo decades of healthy repression, so he was in no hurry to try._

 _"Maybe you were ritually sacrificed to the bloodthirsty god of all magpies, and had many years of exciting adventures in the realms beyond the living before being miraculously restored to life seconds after your untimely death," suggested Max. "You should have asked about that magpie guy's wife!" he added, chidingly._

 _Sam looked at him. "That is not what happened, Max." He rubbed his chin. "Let's see... The next thing I remember is... half an hour had passed..."_

 _Max groaned. "Aw..."_

 _.  
_

Sam stumbled out of the building, back into the real world. His tail didn't hurt as much he'd thought it would, but it was still painful.

Max jumped in front of him and yelled "They turned Sam into a zombie!"

Sam yelled in surprise, and blinked a few times in the dingy daylight. "I'm not a zombie." At least, he didn't feel like he was decomposing.

Max inspected him. "I guess not," he conceded. "What was it like?"

What was what...? Oh. "I don't remember," said Sam.

"Oh," said Max, like it was normal to forget something so important and scary. "Tell me all about it when you remember!"

Sam could feel something wet where his tail used to be, and panicked. "I've got blood on my clothes!" His mother always got really angry about that sort of thing. Something about how hard it was to clean. And then she'd figure out what he'd done. He knew she would.

Robbie patted his shoulder once. "Calm down. You put a bandage on, remember?"

Sam lifted up his shirt and looked down at a bandage he didn't remember putting on. He took a deep breath.

Robbie took out a stack of bills from someplace and counted through them, before giving most of the money to Sam. Sam was going to count to make sure that Robbie had taken exactly ten percent, but he found that he wasn't in the mood for math. Besides, it was more money than he'd ever seen in one place before. He wasn't going to complain, in case it got taken away again.

"Where's my cut?" Max whined as they walked back. "I'm his agent too!"

"That's the way it works in the business world, my friend," replied Robbie, absently batting away a mugger.

"The business world sucks! You suck!" said Max. He kicked the ground. "The sidewalk sucks!"

Max continued to list all the things that sucked, such as their teacher Miss Dobson, vegetables, his brother Paul, rainy days, sunny days and air. Finally, Robbie sighed loudly and said "If I let you play with my gun, will you stop complaining?"

"Oh boy!" said Max, reaching out his hands.

Robbie unloaded his gun and handed it over. "You want to play with it too, Sam?"

It looked so tempting... Sam had always wondered what it felt like to hold something so powerful. But he wasn't allowed to. He'd been given several lectures about how evil guns were, and how just touching one would kill everyone he knew, and if his mother ever saw him within a mile of one she'd beat him until he couldn't see. "No thanks." Not out here where anyone could see him. "I have to get home." He didn't want to lose the amazing amounts of cash in a hilarious misunderstanding. He watched sitcoms, so he knew how these things worked.

"Suit yourself," said Max, aiming directly at Sam's head. "Bang! Bang!"

Sam opened the door slowly and shut his eyes.

"Where have you been?" yelled his mother, right up close to him.

Before she could get started, Sam blurted out "IgotthemoneylookIgotit!" and held out the stack of money.

Silence. Sam risked opening an eye.

His mother was staring at nothing.

Sam stayed where he was. Did this mean she wasn't going to hit him? He hoped so.

Sarah entered the room and said "Mom?" She glared at Sam. "What did you do?"

"I showed her this money and she froze!" said Sam desperately.

Sarah stared at the money for a second, then looked at their mother. "Do... Do we check if her nose is dry or something?"

Their mother blinked a couple of times. "Sam?" she said slowly. "Where did you get that money?"

Sam thought quickly. "Max's brother gave it to me." That was technically true. "So now we can afford the genie remover."

His mother took the money with trembling hands. "I'll... take care of it. Sam, Sarah, why don't you and your brother go get some icecream?" She gave them some coins.

Sam wondered what she was so upset. She should have been happy. She hadn't even told him not to get chocolate, which he took as permission.

.

 _"But what about the genie, Sam?" said Max. "Tell me about the genie," he added in a low voice._

 _Sam decided not to ask and said "Well, after I gave mom the money, she didn't wanna talk about it, and life pretty much went on." It was a bit of an anti-climax, really._

 _"She probably made the whole genie thing up to teach you some corny lesson about responsibility or something," said Max. He inspected something that had come out of his belly button._

 _"You crack me up, little buddy," said Sam, to mask his mounting horror._


	5. Bad Influence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Max gets Sam into trouble.

The alley was so dark it was like being at the bottom of the sea on a moonless, overcast night after the heat death of the universe. For Sam, every step was a feat of willpower he'd never known he was capable of.

"Come on, Sam!" called Max, from somewhere in the murk. "Quit being such a wuss!"

Sam focused on putting one foot in front of the other. Max was right. He did have to stop being such a wuss. According to Max, playing in dark, ominous alleys was really fun. He said he did it all the time, and nothing bad had happened to him even once. Maybe Sam's mother was just being overprotective, like the time she'd got angry just because he'd eaten two gallons of ice cream and thrown up all over the TV. That hadn't even been his fault. Anybody would have got sick from camera work that shaky.

Now it was so dark it was like being at the bottom of the sea on a moonless, overcast night after the heat death of the universe, and also with a blindfold on. Sam's heart began to race. But he wasn't a wuss. He wasn't. He could have fun. He would have fun.

He tried to speak, but it come out as a squeak. He cleared his throat tried again. "O... Okay. I'll be a cop, and you be a mugger." If there was a more perfect game to play in a dark alley, Sam didn't know it.

"Oh boy!" said Max, in what Sam considered to be an inappropriately loud voice.

Sam closed his eyes for a second to give Max a chance to hide. When he opened them, all he could see was darkness. This was fun! It was a lot of fun! What was he, a little girl?

Somehow, his heart wouldn't stop trying to beat out of his chest.

"Ooga booga!" yelled Max, leaping at him from behind.

Sam only just managed to dodge out of the way. He spun around, held his fingers in a gun position, and said "You're under arrest, evil doer!"

There was a loud burst of profanity from very close by, and Sam froze. There was somebody else there. An adult. Who swore.

"It's the cops!" said another voice.

"Run!" said Max.

Sam started to back away. He hit something alive and froze again, which gave the something the chance to grab him.

"Hey!" It was the person who'd sworn. "It's just a little dog kid!"

Sam tried to pull away. "Max!" he called.

"Let's take him with us!" said the other voice. "Kid could come in handy for, uh... Hey, stop that!"

"Max, help me out here!" yelled Sam. He struggled as hard as he could, but he couldn't get free.

Max didn't answer.

Out of desperation, Sam bit the hand that was holding him. He'd be embarrassed about how stereotypical it was later, when he wasn't being kidnapped.

The person dropped him. "Ow! You... stupid mutt!"

Sam ran straight into the other adult, who grabbed him and forced his mouth shut. "Hey, give me some of that rope."

"Let me go!" Sam tried to say through his closed mouth.

The man holding him began wrapping a rope around his muzzle. "This'll keep you quiet."

Sam tried to hit them somewhere tender, but he was too scared to put much force behind it. This was exactly the kind of thing he'd been afraid of. Max never listened to him. And now he might never see Max again.

His mother had told him a lot of stories about why he didn't want to be kidnapped by crooks. So had his brother, and his had been even more gory and interesting. He'd seemed to have a new one every time Sam asked.

Every single one of the stories was now running through his head. What was going to happen to him? The men weren't even talking anymore, probably because of how tight they had to hold him to keep him from escaping.

They dragged him out of the alley, and threw him in the trunk of a car. Sam managed to fight back the terror and the minor head injury long enough to push on the door, but it wouldn't budge. He scooted into the back, where he could sit without crinking his neck too much, and blinked fiercely. He wasn't going to cry. He'd look stupid if he was crying when he escaped.

He tried to think, but all the stories kept popping back up in his mind. He was pretty sure you couldn't really turn a person inside out, and he didn't know why anyone would want to do that anyway, but he'd given it a lot of thought back before, and now the mental image wouldn't go away.

Why had he gone into that alley? His mother was right. It was stupid. He'd been stupid and it was all Max's fault.

Sam flew into the wall as the car screeched to a halt. Outside, he could hear screaming and gunshots. He felt a sudden surge of hope. What if the people kidnapping him got shot? Then he wouldn't be kidnapped anymore!

But his kidnappers were the only ones who even knew he was there. Sam fought back tears again. What if he was stuck in here forever? Being buried alive was on his list of top 50 worst ways to die, and being trapped in the trunk of a car with his mouth tied shut was sort of similar.

He made muffled noises as loud as he could.

It must have worked, because the trunk opened and someone shone a flashlight inside.

Sam blinked in the dazzling light, tried to stand up, and stumbled and fell backwards.

Great. Now he looked like an idiot in front of the flashlight person.

Strong hands lifted him out. "There you go, kid."

Sam stared up at his rescuer, but all he could see was a shadow.

"Now go run along and play, or do drugs, or whatever kids your age do," said the man. It was definitely a man. He sounded like a man, and he smelt like one too. He also smelled like scotch.

There was a loud gunshot from very close by, and Sam's rescuer dropped the flashlight and leapt over the car.

Sam squinted, and could just about make out a man, who was probably in his twenties, punching and shooting and being the best person in the world. He didn't know how long he'd been staring before the man turned around and said "Are you still here? Go on, go back home!"

Oh yeah. He was still in danger. Sam ran in a random direction until the sounds of fighting faded into the normal night-time cacophony.

His terror slowly faded, to be replaced by a slightly different terror. It was so dark he could barely read the graffiti on the street signs. The sun had obviously gone down long ago. How much time had he spent that car? His mother was going to kill him. He almost wished that he hadn't been rescued, but not very hard.

Sam slowed down to get his bearings, and gulped. He had no idea where he was. He stared up at the nearby buildings for a few seconds, then started walking again. There was nothing to do but walk. Maybe he'd end up somewhere familiar if he walked enough.

Or maybe he'd end up upstate. The city had to end somewhere.

He walked and walked, and walked some more. He walked past 24-hour convenience stores, erotic massage parlours, and unconvincing fronts for criminal gangs. He walked past muggings, shootings, and more than one deadly game of hopscotch. He still had no idea where he was, or what time it was. His mother was going to double kill him.

An endless stream of cars zoomed by on the road. They all knew where they going. Sam wished he was a car.

One of the cars braked hard and pulled up next to him. An hour ago, Sam would have backed away, but now he just didn't care. Let him get kidnapped again. At least he wouldn't have to walk.

"Sam?"

"Sarah?" He recognised that voice!

His older sister jumped out of the car. "Sam! What are you _doing_ out here?"

Again, Sam tried not to cry. This time he failed.

Sarah patted him on the back. "Hey now, don't cry, you little dweeb." She was probably trying to be nice to him. She'd never been very good at that.

"Me and Max were in an alley and I got kidnapped and now I don't know how to get home," Sam managed, between swallowed sobs.

Sarah turned back to the car and called, "My little brother needs a ride. Can you take him to the subway?"

"Sure," said a male voice that Sam didn't recognise. It sounded a lot older than Sarah. Their mother probably would not have approved.

Sarah pulled Sam into the car. "Come on, Katie's boyfriend is gonna take you to the subway."

Sam found himself sandwiched between two pre-teen girls who reeked of perfume and make-up.

"Don't upset him, he's crying," Sarah instructed her friends.

"I... I'm not crying," said Sam, who really wasn't anymore. His fur was only a little damp.

"What were you even doing in an alley?" said Sarah. "Mom's gonna kill you! You never listen to her!"

"It was Max's idea," muttered Sam. Also, he was pretty sure that Sarah wasn't supposed to be in a car with someone so old they could drive, but he didn't say so. He didn't want to seem ungrateful.

"Typical," said Sarah. "I don't know why you even hang around with that little psychopath."

"He's my friend," said Sam.

"Mom thinks he's a bad influence," said Sarah.

"He's my friend," repeated Sam.

His mother was probably right.

 

Max was a little disappointed. Who would have thought that real criminals liked to hang out in dark alleys? It looked like Sam had run away in a different direction or something, because he hadn't seen him all night. He'd looked, too. He'd wandered around calling Sam's name for seconds, maybe even minutes, until somebody had shot at him.

They'd missed. Maybe. He wasn't good at telling stuff like that.

Sam would be able to figure it out, when Max saw him. Usually they met up on the way to school, but today Max was nearly there and he hadn't seen him at all. Max thought that was weird, until he discovered a squashed rat on the road and forgot all about it.

He found Sam sitting alone in the school playground, near the monkey bars. He looked like he was fidgeting or nervous or crying or one of those emotions. One of his eyes was swollen shut again.

Max slid up to him with his best slide. "Hey, Sam! What happened to you last night?"

Sam stared at the ground and mumbled something.

That was as good an answer as any. "Come on, let's see if we can make the first-graders think they're the only survivors of a nuclear holocaust!" suggested Max. He grabbed Sam by the arm.

Sam pulled away, still looking at the ground. "Mom says..." Max missed the rest of whatever he was trying to say because he was talking so quiet.

"She says a lot of things!" said Max, in his best tough guy voice. "Come on!"

"Mom says we can't hang out anymore," repeated Sam, a little louder.

"Okay," said Max. Who cared what she said? "Let's go find some red goggles and spent ammo!"

Sam didn't move. "I can't. Mom won't let me."

"You're not gonna listen to her, are you?" said Max. This was disgusting. He'd thought Sam was getting less wussy. This was practically the opposite.

"They tried to kidnap me last night," said Sam.

"And?" said Max. He obviously wasn't kidnapped anymore, or he wouldn't be there. One of the good things about being kidnapped was that you didn't have to go to school.

Sam kicked the dirt. "I didn't even wanna go in there. I got kidnapped because of you."

Max was mystified. "So what?"

Sam started to smile slightly, then stopped himself. "Mom... mom thinks I shouldn't hang out with someone who gets me kidnapped."

"Huh?" said Max. He'd spaced out a little.

"We can't be friends anymore," said Sam, more forcefully than usual.

What? _What_? Max could never tell where a conversation was going in any case, but he especially hadn't been expecting that. " _Huh_?" Sam was his best friend. They'd been best friends since Max had transferred to their school and saved him from those kindergarten bullies. That was the way things were.

Sam hesitated. "Sorry."

 

Max spent the rest of the day in a stupor. That wasn't unusual, but what was unusual was how little fun he had. Every time he tried to sit near Sam, Sam would get up and go somewhere else. At lunch he even sat with Tris and Paul. Tris and Paul! Those jerks.

Max hid under their table. That'd show them.

"Hey Sam, what happened to your eye?" he heard Paul say.

Max never asked Sam why he was hurt. Half the time he'd been there with him, the wuss. Paul was such a jerk.

"I... fell down the stairs," Sam mumbled.

Well that was a huge lie. "Was that before or after your mom hit you?" said Max.

Wait, wasn't he supposed to be hiding or something? Oh well.

Sam ducked down and stared. "Max!"

"What?" said Max. "She does." It wasn't like it was a secret.

Tris ducked after Sam and grabbed Max. "Get out of here, you furry freak!" He slapped him a couple of times. "No offence, Sam."

Max wriggled out of his grip and bent back Tris's fingers. "Sam, hold him down so I can..."

He trailed off. Sam was just looking at him. He wasn't moving, or even smiling. Just looking. "Sorry, Max."

Max stared at him pathetically while Tris struggled. He was still staring when a teacher forcibly separated them and gave them both detention.

 

Max didn't notice the rest of class. He didn't notice detention. He didn't notice walking home. He didn't even notice the daily battle for the limited supply of after-school snacks.

He was sitting on the floor, absently picking stuff out of his bellybutton, when his older brother Robbie approached, a toddler rabbit hanging off his arm by the teeth. "Max, are you okay?"

Max looked up at him. "Huh?"

"You look kinda out of it," said Robbie. "And I think someone followed you home." He pointed behind Max.

Max looked around excitedly, only to see someone who wasn't Sam. "Jennie?"

Jennie smiled at him annoyingly."I hear you and Sam aren't friends anymore. You made the right choice, Max. The right choice."

For some reason, Robbie stopped him from throwing her out the window. He was such a wet blanket sometimes.

Like Sam.

Once she'd been sent home, via the door, Robbie sat down next to Max and said "So you and Sam had a fight, huh?"

Max nodded, his eyes on the floor. "He said... uh... He said something."

Robbie patted him on the back.

"This sucks," Max mumbled. "I wish I was never born." What was the point of being born when you couldn't have fun with your friends?

Robbie jumped up and grabbed Max by the shoulders. "What did you say? Never say that!"

What was this, school? "But it does suck!" It was barely even a swear.

"Not that!" said Robbie. He shook Max so hard that the toddler fell off. "The thing about not being born! What month is this?"

"Uh..." said Max. He couldn't remember. They kept changing it. That was another thing that sucked.

"It's _December_ ," said Robbie. "The one thing you should never do in December is wish you'd never been born! Do you know what happens if you do?"

"No..." muttered Max. His foot itched.

Robbie leaned in close. "An angel will come to you in the night, and teach you corny lessons about the value of life. You don't want that, do you?"

"No," muttered Max again, but he almost didn't care.

 

Max couldn't sleep. He'd got the hard spot on the carpet, the one with all the dried pasta sauce. He hadn't been stuck with the pasta sauce spot since he was six.

But that wasn't why he couldn't sleep.

"Max..."

Max sat up. Someone had said his name, but nobody else seemed to be awake. Who would say his name in their sleep? He was going to beat them up once he figured out who they were.

"Max... Can you hear me?"

"Yeah!" said Max, then lowered his voice. Some of his siblings got really angry and punchy if they were woken up in the middle of the night. Actually, most of them did. "Yeah, and shut up!"

"Max, listen to me," said the unseen voice.

Max looked around the darkened room. He could see his siblings, sleeping on couches and armchairs and kitchen chairs and the TV and the floor and the ceiling. He couldn't see who he was talking to. "Where are you? Let me hit you!"

"Oh. My apologies."

A slightly transparent rabbit of about Max's age materialised in front of him.

Max squinted. "Bennie?" he said at last. He couldn't figure out which brother this kid was, or why he was see-through. He'd always wanted to be see-through. He and Sam should...

Oh. Right.

"I'm not Bennie," said the rabbit irritably. He flapped his wings a bit.

Max couldn't remember whether Bennie had wings or not. "Are you sure?"

"I am an angel!" said the rabbit. He flapped harder.

Max wrinkled his forehead. There was something about angels he'd heard recently... Something important... But it probably didn't matter.

The angel laid an incorporeal hand on Max's shoulder. "So you wish you were never born, huh?"

"I do?" said Max. He didn't remember saying anything like that.

"Then let me show you a future in which you were never born..." said the angel mystically.

He wasn't sure why, but that seemed wrong, somehow. "Aren't you supposed to show me the present?"

"Max, you're still in elementary school," said the angel. "Do you honestly think that the world would be at all affected by your absence?"

Max scratched his head. This guy used too many words.

"Now take my hand, and I'll show you a future without Max," intoned the angel, grabbing Max by the wrist.

The room dissolved.

"Cool!" said Max. Could he do that do, or was it just for angels? He wanted to learn how to do that!

They appeared in a grocery store that smelled of overripe fruit and stale cereal. The lights were dimmed, and the moans of tortured souls emanated from all sides.

The angel waved his hands. "An innocent supermarket, terrorised by a ghostly beast from the realm of the damned."

"Wow!" said Max, as a family ran past screaming. "And what is it like without me?"

"This is what it's like without you," said the angel, sounding annoyed. And also annoying.

The room dissolved again. Now they were standing on a barren, rocky planet. The sun was shining, but the sky was black. Nothing moved, not even the wind.

"Do I stop this from happening too?" said Max. What was wrong with his future self? This version of Earth was awesome!

The angel rolled his eyes, and the view of the dead planet dissolved. "Look," he said. "A horror from the dark dimensions rampages through the streets. It's the end of civilisation as we know it. Don't you want to stop that, even a little bit?"

Max shrugged. The city looked really cool in all the firelight. "I dunno. Am I the horror from the dark dimensions?"

"No!" snapped the angel. "You don't exist, remember?"

Max scratched himself. "Oh yeah. I'm gonna go back to sleep, okay?"

He lay down in the middle of the street as all the nearby buildings collapsed on top of him.

 

"Max! Max! Max! Max!"

"Leave me alone," Max mumbled. He batted at the air. Stupid angel. He needed to hurry up and leave him alone. Angels were so stupid, he hated them!

"Max! Max! Max! Max! Max!"

Max felt something shake him. "Go away!"

"Come on Max, you promised her," said Robbie's voice.

Max rolled over. "I did not." He opened his eyes so he could glare better.

But it wasn't the angel. It was his little sister, Liza. He'd been wondering why he sounded so much like a girl all of a sudden.

"You promised me you'd show me how to suplex!" said Liza.

Max didn't remember that, but if Robbie said so, then it must be true. He sat up and said "I had the weirdest dream. There was an angel... Oh no."

The angel was floating behind them, smiling.

"Look!" said Max, pointing. "The angel! He's over there!"

"Everybody get down!" yelled Robbie. He drew his gun and fired wildly in the direction Max had pointed.

"He's over _there_!" yelled Max. "There! Are you blind?"

Robbie reloaded his gun. "He's your angel. That means you're the only one who can see him."

Max glared. "That sucks."

 

Sam made sure he wasn't sitting too close to Max at recess. He wasn't with him. He wasn't allowed to talk to him, and besides, he was mad at him.

He also made sure he wasn't sitting too far from him. He was so bored. He wanted to run around, and maybe try to figure out how to turn semi-transparent like Max had tried to tell him about.

He sat with his hands on his chin. He was so, so bored. He had to find a new friend who was as awesome as Max, but who got him kidnapped a little less. That would be ideal.

He wasn't listening to what Max was saying, either. It seemed like Max missed Sam as much as Sam missed Max. He didn't normally talk to himself.

Not that Sam actually missed him or anything. Good riddance. Tris and Paul and whatever other boys where in his class were way cooler, even if they didn't like shaking trees to see if horrible monsters fell out, and even if they did call him Rover all the time.

"If you don't go away right now, my big brother's gonna shoot you!" said Max, pointing his fingers like a gun. He paused like he was listening, then added "I don't care, he'll be here!"

Was he talking to someone? There was nobody nearby except Sam. There usually wasn't, around Max.

"I don't _care_!" said Max again. "Hey, show me that cool desolate Earth future again." He paused. "Man, I thought Sam was a goody-two-shoes."

Sam looked where Max was looking. There was nothing there that he could see, but Max was really getting upset by something. So Sam picked up a rock.

"Yeah? Well why don't you go back to heaven?" said Max, in his tough guy voice.

Sam threw the rock, and it bounced off thin air with a satisfying crack.

Max looked around. "Sam!" he said happily. "You killed it!"

Sam walked over to him, trying to see what it was. "Now we're even," he said, trying to sound nonchalant.

"Huh?"

That was Max. He never knew what anyone was talking about, ever. "You saved me from bullies when we met, remember?"

"Uh..." said Max.

"And I saved you from the invisible guy you were arguing with," said Sam. "That means I repaid my debt." He kind of wished he hadn't, though. Now he had no excuse to hang around.

"You're... indebted to me?" said Max, beginning to smile.

Sam was surprised that he knew that word. "Not anymore."

Max snorted. "You are so. What about the time I saved you from that meteor that was gonna crash on your head?"

"That never happened!" said Sam, beginning to smile a bit. "That's not even what meteor means!" By definition, meteors burned up in the atmosphere before they could hit anything. Max was thinking of meteorites.

"I remember it differently," said Max, a little smugly. "And what about that giant killer tree?"

"Oh yeah." He'd give Max that one.

"And the time I saved you from those bullies in third grade," added Max.

Sam resisted a grin. Then he stopped resisting. "I guess I owe you for a lot of stuff, huh?"

"Yes," said Max in a serious tone that was ruined by his wide smile.

Sam guessed that Max had protected him more times than he'd put him in danger. The times he'd put in him in danger and then protected him from it counted as protection, he decided. He'd tell his mother that, and maybe she'd listen. Maybe.

"That means you have to be my friend again," said Max.

Sam pretended to think it over. "Uh, okay."

"And also my slave," Max added.

Sam chuckled. Max always made him laugh. Even when he couldn't tell if he was serious.


End file.
